


Mainland Madness

by Burgie



Category: Star Stable Online
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-27
Updated: 2018-04-27
Packaged: 2019-04-28 14:27:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,046
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14451210
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Burgie/pseuds/Burgie
Summary: Ms Drake deals with the aftermath of one of her employees' stupid decisions. Rebecca belongs to centeris2.





	Mainland Madness

Sometimes, Ms Drake could really use something a good bit stronger than a coffee, no matter how black and bitter her intern managed to make it. Rebecca had taken to making the coffee herself, after Ms Drake had scorned the local coffee for being too sweet and weak, like the people who lived here. Those had been her exact words, too. Privately, Ms Drake believed that Rebecca was only making the coffee in order to protect the local café owners from the businesswoman’s wrath. But Ms Drake didn’t really care: after all, she got her coffee and she didn’t have to deal with incompetent idiots who didn’t know a long black from an Americano. Besides, Rebecca made the best coffee. Perfectly black, perfectly bitter. It was like eating burnt coffee beans. Ms Drake highly approved.

And now, looking at the police report that had just landed on her desk (she was sent all police reports as a matter of course- after all, she could easily keep her nose clean, and the nose of her company, if she knew exactly what had happened. Once she’d read the police report and gotten properly riled up, she could speak to her company’s lawyers and get them to do all of the dirty work. Usually, these police reports involved her stupid employees getting into bar fights or otherwise assaulting people. But sometimes… damn, she wished that she had a good whisky or vodka to ward off the headache that she could already feel forming).

Ms Drake groaned as she rubbed her temples, squinting her eyes shut after reading this latest report.

“Chipmunks. Fucking chipmunks,” said Ms Drake, lacing her hands behind her neck. She could already feel her temperature rising. Why… just why? She knew why, of course- only idiots could be trusted to work for her, idiots who would not ask questions or start to put things together. She longed for the obedient yet more intelligent guards that Dark Core had, much as she loathed the rival company with every fibre of her being. The very fact that she had to work with them now made her skin crawl.

Despite how deep in thought she was, Ms Drake still heard her office door open. She would have raised her head, but there was only one person who would dare to set foot into her office this early.

“Bad news, I take it?” said Rebecca, her simple flats making no sound as she walked across the carpet. Just the way Ms Drake liked it, really, she often suffered migraines due to all the stress that she was under. It was hard work, being a supervillain, but somebody had to do it while looking as good as she did in a suit.

“You’d better have my coffee, girl,” said Ms Drake. “I’d kill for one. Literally.” She looked up at her intern, her blue gaze boring into the young woman who stood before her.

“Black as pitch and almost as viscous, just the way you like it,” said Rebecca, knowing that Ms Drake absolutely meant her threat. Ms Drake took the coffee gratefully, though she didn’t show Rebecca any sign of gratitude. She never did, it would be a crack in her façade.

“Were you involved,” Ms Drake drawled after taking a sip of the most disgusting coffee known to man. It would have made anyone’s hair fall out, but it only made her hair tighten. “In the most recent display of incompetence by GED?”

“You mean the guy with the chipmunks?” asked Rebecca, wisely not asking which display of incompetence Ms Drake was referring to. “Yeah, I… heard something about it.” Ms Drake snorted.

“I know you were involved, girl, don’t lie to me,” Ms Drake snapped. Rebecca, blessedly, did not flinch and cower as the other spineless worms would have. It was a refreshing trait to see.

“If I may ask-“ Rebecca began.

“You may not,” said Ms Drake, her tone icy as she sipped at her coffee again. “This is disgusting. Don’t expect a pay raise just because you’re making my coffee, either, making coffee is a skill expected of any half-decent intern. Which you are. Barely.”

“I neither ask nor expect,” said Rebecca. “But perhaps it might be better to tell the story from your point of view? To vent, if you will.”

“My preferred method of venting is currently unavailable to me,” said Ms Drake, glaring distastefully at the girl before her. Rebecca shrugged, she couldn’t control her menstrual cycle. It was a most annoying aspect of the fairer sex.

“Would a neck massage help?” asked Rebecca. Ms Drake quirked her lips.

“It couldn’t hurt,” said Ms Drake. Rebecca walked around behind her, beginning to knead the tense flesh at Ms Drake’s neck and shoulders. Ms Drake sighed in relief, feeling her muscles gradually untense. But her jaw was still clenched as her gaze swept over the report again. “Chip. Munks.”

“That was my initial response too,” said Rebecca, her thumbs digging deep into the muscles beneath the flesh. Ms Drake stifled a groan, rolling her eyes in pleasure where Rebecca couldn’t see.

“Sometimes I really hate the fact that I have to hire idiots just to get the job done right,” said Ms Drake. “But anyone smarter would ask questions or demand more or start putting things together.”

“Obedience and unquestioning loyalty is a hard thing to find without brains backing it up,” Rebecca agreed, her thumbs rubbing over Ms Drake’s spine. Mr Drake gave a sigh of satisfaction before she could stop herself. Only up for a few hours and she already felt like an elderly woman with joints as old as the hills. Or an equestrian.

“Honestly, what was he thinking?” said Ms Drake, throwing her hands up. “And now this little… _child_ is trying to sue the company. Sue GED!” She laughed, a real, genuine belly laugh coming right from her trim stomach. “He’s trying to sue us? I’ve looked into his family, too, they’re poorer than dirt, poorer than that Dew family we destroyed.”

“He doesn’t stand a chance,” said Rebecca, trying not to think about poor, sweet Maya. James was a jerk, he deserved whatever he got.

“I should sue him right back,” said Ms Drake. “Sue him, and his family, and all of his friends and neighbours.”

“Why waste your time on that?” asked Rebecca. “He’s not worth it. Just let your lawyers handle this, pin all of the blame on that employee. He sustained a head injury, after all, perhaps it… muddled his memories.” Ms Drake smiled.

“Clever,” Ms Drake purred. “Very clever.” She took another sip of her coffee, a larger one this time now that it had cooled slightly.

“I try,” said Rebecca brightly, moving those wonderfully skilled fingers of hers to Ms Drake’s neck. The muscles there were especially tense, but melted like butter under Rebecca’s fingers. Ms Drake let herself relax back into Rebecca’s touch.

“That idiot could have cost us everything if he’d hurt the wrong person with that stupid stunt he pulled,” said Ms Drake. “Well, not everything, but he could have created a much bigger headache. Had he harmed one of the Moorlands or Silverglades, for example, or someone else with the money to match their might… well, then we’d be in the shit. Fortunately, it was only him that got hurt, and one little brat with more anger than common sense.”

“Why dig for minerals there, anyway?” asked Rebecca. Ms Drake was too relaxed now to prickle at Rebecca poking into things that didn’t concern her, so she only closed her eyes and sighed through her nose. “I mean, you’ve already found it here, why dig anywhere else?”

“I have to keep them occupied,” said Ms Drake. “Their mission is simple: to dig up the ground in Jorvik in search of precious ores and minerals. If they do not do that, they do something even more stupid.”

“Kembell?” said Rebecca. Now, Ms Drake sneered in annoyance.

“Yes, like him,” said Ms Drake, her voice dripping with scorn. “That absolute buffoon. Catfishing people with houses, hiding barrels of toxic waste. We don’t need money, not that badly, we’re rich from suing everyone. Hopefully, by the time his body is found, all of the evidence has deteriorated. The one time I’m glad for that ugly nature getting in the way. Pity we couldn’t put a house on him like I’d originally planned, but the wolves can just as easily be blamed.” Rebecca, to her credit, didn’t flinch.

“GED is better off with you leading, anyway,” said Rebecca. “With you in charge, the company is going to do great things.” Ms Drake smiled in satisfaction, looking very much like a cat who had gotten the cream. Or a ruthless businesswoman who had gotten her black, black coffee.

“Flattery will get you nowhere,” said Ms Drake, wondering if it would perhaps be a bad idea to let her hair down so that Rebecca could better massage her head. But no. Showing her non-existent feminine side would only result in trouble, were she to even entertain the fantasy briefly. She hadn’t had her hair down since she was a little girl, except for when she showered. And when she did that, nobody was allowed in to see her. Not even Rebecca.

“How goes the progress on Hillcrest?” asked Rebecca. Privately, she was beginning to suspect that Ms Drake was afraid to approach the walled-off desolation of purple fog.

“Slowly,” said Ms Drake. “Those eco-terrorist hippies have upset my latest business partner. I don’t know what they wanted with that horse trainer, why he seems to be so important to so many people, but he has caused us nothing but trouble.” Rebecca smirked where Ms Drake couldn’t see. Oh, that woman had no idea just how much trouble that ‘simple horse trainer’ had caused. But her humour quickly faded with what Ms Drake said next. “Better that we should have just put him into Old Hillcrest and killed him then.”

“So it is dangerous, then?” asked Rebecca, trying to sound as though she was keeping the conversation going rather than asking for information. She knew just how much of a snake Ms Drake could be.

“Oh yes, very dangerous,” said Ms Drake. “No doubt Kembell would want to bottle the stuff and sell it, but we could use it to punish those who disobey us or refuse to give us what we want. But alas, I cannot get near it. Our scientists have done some tests, and they believe the area to be soaked in some kind of radiation.” Rebecca knew exactly what kind of radiation, but she said nothing. The mention of magic would only result in scorn and ridicule from her boss.

“Whatever’s inside, though, it must be worth getting to,” said Rebecca.

“Definitely,” said Ms Drake, nodding. “But at least the radiation keeps out our competitors too.” It probably wouldn’t keep out Dark Core for long, but Dark Core probably wouldn’t want the Drakonium, anyway. Darkonium. Pandorium. Whatever the mineral was, Rebecca was pretty sure that it was Pandorian in origin. It had to be. Most things were on this island.

“That is a good thing,” said Rebecca, continuing her massage of Ms Drake’s head, neck, and shoulders. The woman was slowly beginning to relax, though Rebecca thought that it was partially from the venting and, weirdly, the coffee.

“I need to deal with this,” said Ms Drake, finally pulling herself away from the lure of relaxation. It was far too tempting to just relax with Rebecca all day. This kind of feeling was dangerous, Ms Drake knew that.

“I’ll stay nearby?” asked Rebecca, walking back to the front of the desk.

“I do need my coffee,” said Ms Drake, raising the cup to her lips with what might have been a smile. Rebecca returned her smile.

“If you need more coffee, just break something,” said Rebecca, and left the room, closing and locking the door behind her. Ms Drake sighed as she looked back at her report. Paperwork was a necessary evil of the job, the one thing that she truly loathed more than anything else. There wasn’t enough coffee in the world to make it bearable, but she could still try.


End file.
